What language fluency looks like

On my adventures around Pinterest, I recently came across this image which is filled with thoughts of "language fluency". It addresses a question every learner asks him- or herself lots of times - What exactly IS fluency? So many of you quote fluency as the ultimate learning ambition, so have you defined what it means to you? 

Giant beret is not a symbol of fluency

A word about SMART goals

If you have taken on challenges in the past, you may have come across this very corporate acronym before. SMART stands for specific - measurable - achievable - relevant - time constrained. Generally speaking, this is considered to be the best possible way that you can formulate a goal. "Fluency" therefore needs to be made measurable, and it's really important that you try and spell out to yourself what exactly it means to be fluent.

For example, a vague and not very effective goal would be "I want to be able to have a conversation with a French person soon." 

Now compare that to this goal, which can be considered worthwhile and functional: "I want to be able to have general small talk about the weather and travel methods (specific and  achievable ) with my French aunt (relevant ) when I go and see them in a month (time constrained )." And even with that, the question of how you measure it is not too clearly answered. Measuring fluency is up to you. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, fluency happens when you believe it's happening.

Checklist - what makes you fluent?

In the image shown above, you can see a few good indicators that you could take as measurements of fluency. For me, these are the most important ones:

• You are able to communicate without hesitation and without long gaps, and feel confident to compensate for words you don't know
  
  
• You are secure enough in your understanding of grammar and word order that you can produce sentences without wondering where the words go or what tense the sentence is supposed to be in
  
  
• You feel that you connect, share information and understand your partner's responses in a conversation
  
  
• You find that using your language brings you a sense of achievement and confidence, which increases your core skills 

If you are a language learner or educator, what would you add to this list? Or would you take something out?

Remember it's attitude and skill combined

Finally, there are two parts to becoming that fluent speaker you dream of being. It's in your attitude, trying and going for it without worries of whether your verb endings are spot on or not. But there is also an aspect of practice and expertise, so don't think that with the right attitude you could completely neglect the study part. Once you get both of those up to the right level, you will just know that it's working. Until then....invisible progress. 

Fluency Masterclass, Part 2: Writing

​Hey all, welcome to the second instalment in my series of articles looking at practical techniques for mastering each of the four core skills in language acquisition. Let's have a closer look at..

Writing

Yes, writing skills. That's that thing people did with pen and paper before screens and keyboards. Ideas for simple exercises to get started with might be writing your shopping list, packing list, postcards or recipes.

Using colours to mark word types, and to annotate my notes.

A word about writing and typing

In this article I do recommend you focus on old-school pen and paper. For the language learner, this provides a really important benefit: kinaesthetic (tactile) learning. This means that the movements of putting letter-shaped lines on paper in new combinations will help you remember.

There are also psychological benefits. I'm currently studying Russian - a new challenge with new letters! Putting them onto paper in my own handwriting and with my own hands gives the whole undertaking a stronger sense of achievement. It really is me mastering letters like л, Ф, and я!

If you do feel that you want to get typing, there are advantages to doing it online. Websites like Italki have journaling functions that invite native speakers to answer your questions or correct your entries, which can be excellent practice. Make sure you re-write everything after it's been corrected.

Steps to improve your writing skills

Play with colour, shape and paper

​Now that you are hopefully signed up to pen and paper, or at least stylus and paper app, you should use them to their full potential. Use different coloured pens, highlighters and crayons. Doodle. Mark up your sentences in a way that makes sense to you. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Colour each word differently depending on its gender
• Underline every verb, then shade in every object, then use another colour for different cases
• Write out the sentence in one tense, then re-write it in another
• Draw tables, boxes, diagrams, or whatever you need to illustrate your thoughts

Sound out the letters, syllables and words

While breaks and gaps in a conversation are so obvious they're bound to make you nervous, writing is something you can do in your own time. Languages have a script in order to document the sounds you make when speaking out loud, so make sure you engage fully when you are writing things down: Sound out each letter, add the sounds to make a word and really get to know them. Yes, it sounds silly. That probably means you are doing it correctly.

Listen and Write

Combining your language skills is the key to fluency. When it comes to writing, this means your integration should go both ways. Remember dictation tests from school? Find a simple audio example. Listen first and write down what you hear - this will work on your comprehension, spelling and most importantly teach you the connections between spelling and sound. Then compare your notes to the transcript to see what you got right. This exercise should be a weekly drill, because its benefits are bound to build up your skills significantly.

Writing was part two of the Fluency Masterclass. Catch up on Part 1 (Reading), and if you enjoyed this article why not subscribe to my monthly newsletter here:

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Other great articles about reading in language learning

• Omniglot: Want to speak a foreign language better? Learn to write first!
  
• ​The Everyday Language Learner: Five reasons you should write as part of your language learning